The Last Kings of Shanghai

fish.

 

Within this world, Jews flourished. They first arrived in 587 b.c., when Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem, and upon victory carried 10,000 Jewish artisans, scholars, and leaders-Judaism's best and brightest-to Baghdad into what the Bible dubbed "the Babylonian Captivity." The book of Psalms famously documented the despair of these displaced Jews:

 

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down

 

Yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

 

In fact, "the Babylonian Captivity" changed the course of Jewish history. Jewish learning and religious innovation blossomed, giving Jews the religious, political, and economic tools-and a way of thinking-they would use to survive and thrive around the world over the next millennia and through to today. It marked the start of the Jewish diaspora: the dispersal-and survival-of Jews around the world, even when they made up just a small sliver of the population. Rabbis modified Jewish ritual practices to accommodate Judaism to modern life and enable Jews to participate in business. Though he had kidnapped the Jews into captivity, Nebuchadnezzar didn't treat them as slaves. He turned to the Jews to strengthen Baghdad's economy. He encouraged them to become merchants and trade between the different parts of his sprawling kingdom. So important were Jews to Baghdad's business life that many non-Jews working in trade and finance didn't go to the office on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath. When the Persians conquered Baghdad and offered the Jews the chance to return to Jerusalem, only a few accepted. Most decided to stay. Baghdad's Jews considered themselves the Jewish aristocracy. Like Jews in London and New York centuries later, Baghdad's Jews may have yearned to return to Jerusalem in their Saturday prayers at their local synagogue, but the other six days a week, they grasped the opportunities around them and built a thriving metropolis.

 

Presiding over this dynamic, self-confident com

their colonial assumptions and celebrating their accomplishments. This richly detailed account illuminates an underexamined overlap between modern Jewish and Chinese history." Publishers Weekly

"An absorbing multigenerational saga . . . of two significant Jewish families who built wildly prosperous financial empires in Shanghai and Hong Kong that lasted for nearly two centuries . . . Kaufman argues persuasively that their entrepreneurial drive built a lasting capitalist legacy in the country." Kirkus Reviews

"A fascinating look at two powerful dynasties as well as a sharp lens through which to view Shanghai's ups and downs." Booklist

What s even less likely than a clan of displaced Baghdadi Jews who find themselves in twentieth-century Shanghai and change it forever? Try two clans of displaced Baghdadi Jews. This is the tale that Jonathan Kaufman tells in his remarkable history of the Sassoon and Kadoorie families. Read it and the Bund will never look the same. Peter Hessler, author of River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze and Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China

With exacting research and masterful prose, Kaufman excavates the tremendous influence of two Jewish families, both with roots in Baghdad, on China s layered and complex modern history. An astonishing read, on every level.  Georgia Hunter, author of We Were the Lucky Ones
 
Jonathan Kaufman shows how the families of Sassoon and Kadoorie surfed the vicissitudes of history to dominate their chosen arenas commercially and socially. They were indeed Kings , but it was the great city of Shanghai that was to both make and break them.   Paul French, author of Midnight in Peking and City of Devils

Gripping and epic in sweep, The Last Kings of Shanghai reads like a thriller but is also enormously informative, offering a vibrant history of the cities of Shanghai and Hong Kong through the fascinating lens of two rival Jewish dynasties that helped shape them.   Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and Political Tribes

"Jonathan Kaufman mines a rich vein of untold history that knits together the Jewish diaspora with the stirrings of Revolution in modern China. The improbable saga of the Sassoon family reads like an eastern and Sephardic companion to the story of the Warburgs--a saga both personal and political, riveting and ultimately heartbreaking. And in Kaufman's always-deft hands, it's a terrific read." Roger Lowenstein, author of America's Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve

"Kaufman brings to life the extraordinary forgotten history of two Jewish families who helped transform China into a global economic powerhouse. A masterpiece of research, The Last Kings of Shanghai is a vivid and fascinating story of wealth, family intrigue, and political strategy on the world stage from colonialism to communism to globalized capitalism." Susannah Heschel, Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College